by John Ringo
The motorpool at the base was still within the worst effects of the overpressure wave, but the major damage was to the buildings as walls and windows shattered inward. Many of the Humvees and trucks in the motorpool had had their windows blasted out; but, by and large, the overpressure wave left them intact and they were shielded from the worst of the blast by the intervening hills.
The heat from the blast did not cause any flash fires outside the immediate vicinity of the SheVa, but the trees on the surrounding hills were tossed aside like matchsticks and those further out were stripped of their leaves.
Further to the west the explosion washed over the remnants of the corps and division artillery, detonating the remaining ordnance and killing most of the surviving artillerymen. The explosion also caught most of the remaining tenaral, however, tumbling them into ruin on the ground.
The human defense of Rabun Gap had been effectively gutted. The majority of its fighting forces were either under assault at the Wall or already dead from the SheVa detonation. The way north was open.
Well, almost.
* * *
Papa O'Neal whistled as he walked back to the house. He'd been whistling or humming Van Morrison's "Moondance" just about all morning and Cally was just about sick of it.
"You're awful smug today, Gramps," she said. She was feeling edgy from the artillery; it had started up midmorning and had been hammering solidly ever since. From the amount and duration they were hammering a major attack although only recently had the Wall guns started to sound.
"I'm just in a fine mood, young lady," he answered.
"Yeah, I suppose you would be," she said with a malicious chuckle.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" he said carefully.
Cally set down the knife she had been slicing with and wiped her hands. Reaching under the table she pulled out a Betamax tape and waved it in the air.
"You do recall that the entire house is wired for video," she said, darting for the door.
"GIVE ME THAT!" he bellowed, chasing after her.
"You've got a lot of stamina for an old guy!" she yelled, darting around the woodshed.
"COME BACK HERE WITH THAT, YOU LITTLE VIXEN! IF YOU WATCHED . . ."
"Where in the hell did you learn that thing with the legs in the air?" she yelled back.
"AAAAH."
They both stopped at the sound of a large crack from the direction of the Wall. The afternoon was bright, but there was still a visible amount of light thrown off by whatever had caused the sound.
"What in the hell was that?" Cally asked.
"I don't know," Papa O'Neal answered. "But it was from the Wall. I think maybe we'd better get ready to lock the farm down."
A second series of sharp cracks, like a string of very high explosives, came from the direction of the artillery park and a very loud boom indicated a secondary explosion. Papa O'Neal caught a flicker at the valley entrance of something smooth, silver and very fast moving. "What in the hell was that?"
"I dunno, Granpa," Cally said nervously. "But I agree; time to lock and cock." She tossed him the tape. "For your collection. May there be many more."
* * *
It took only a few minutes to get all the livestock under cover and the minefields armed, but they barely had finished closing the last gate when the sky lit with a white flash brighter than the sun.
"Granpa?!" Cally called, running towards the house.
"DOWN, DOWN, DOWN!" O'Neal screamed, hitting the ground himself.
The shockwave, when it hit, was hardly noticeable, but there was a distinct change in air pressure and the trees on the heights swayed as if in a high wind. Then the ground wave hit like a minor earthquake.
"What in the hell is happening?" Cally called. She was about fifteen feet from the front door on her stomach.
"All clear!" Papa O'Neal called, standing up and sprinting for the house. "Inside!"
"Was that what I think it was?" Cally asked when they got inside the door.
"It was a nuke," Papa O'Neal answered. "I think it was probably the Corps SheVa going; the direction and size was about right if I remember correctly."
Cally beat him through the house connection to the bunker by a hair and started throwing on her Kevlar. "We're not set up for nukes, Grandpa."
"I know," he said, turning on the minefields and electronics before donning his own gear. "What bugs me is not knowing what is going on." He flipped from one camera to the next, but most of them were dead. "Damned EMP."
"So what do we do?" Cally asked.
O'Neal thought about that. If it was just one nuke, specifically the SheVa going off, it might not be that bad. It depended, of course, on where the gun was when it went off. But the Wall shouldn't be affected. There was some fighting from there still; or at least those heavy weapons. Those could be Posleen, but think positive.
There were basically two choices. Plan A was hunker in the bunker, fight anything that came up the notch and wait for the Posleen to get wiped out by the Army. Plan B was run like hell. Since the farm had been in the family for generations, Plan B was not their favorite choice.
Without knowing the condition of the corps he had no idea which plan to go with. He picked up the phone installed in the bunker, but there wasn't even a dial tone. He could hike up the ridge to where he could see the corps, but that would mean either both of them going or leaving Cally alone. And with a potentially nuclear environment, getting out of the bunker didn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense. Finally he decided to just try to ride it out.
"We'll stay here," he said, pulling an MRE out of a cabinet. "We'll have grilled ham and cheese tomorrow."
"Yup," Cally said with a grin. "For tomorrow is another day." She looked at her MRE and grimaced. "Trade ya."
* * *
"Pruitt, get the gun up, NOW!" Major Robert Mitchell slid into the command seat and started buckling in, flipping all his switches to "On" as fast as he could.
"But, sir!" the gunner called, looking up from his Visor. "It's the one where Bun-Bun has lost his memory and he's being held by these kids who think . . ."
There was a reason that SheVa Nine, now unofficially referred to as "Bun-Bun," had a two-story picture of a giant, brown-and-white, floppy-eared rabbit holding a switchblade painted on the front carapace. It, and the "Let's Rock, Posleen-boy!" caption, had taken a few hours to explain to the new commander. After reading the comic, and getting hooked, the commander had reluctantly acceded to the painting; some corps permitted them and some didn't and they would just have to see what the local corps commander was like. As it turned out, they hadn't had time to even check in with the corps before the fecal matter hit the rotary impeller.
"NOW, Pruitt!" the major yelled. "Load! Fourteen is under attack! I don't know what they are . . ."
"Major!" Warrant Officer Indy called, popping up out of the repair hatch. "Don't move the track!"
"Why not?" the commander called. "Schmoo, are we hot?"
"Coming online now, sir," Private Reeves called back. The private was large, pale, doughy looking and somewhat slow, thus the nickname. But he was a good SheVa driver. From deep in the belly of the tank the sound of massive breakers engaging thundered through the structure.
"I don't have signal!" Pruitt called. "Sensors are offline. I'd guess camo. Whoa! Big EMP spike! It was worse out there than Bun-Bun denied his Baywatch!"
"Crack the camo!" Major Mitchell called. "Manual rotate the lidar."
"Sir!" the warrant said desperately. "That's what I'm trying to tell you; the camo-foam isn't set yet. Until it cures it's . . . malleable. Heat it up and it sets hard; if it seals the sensors we'll never have an acquisition system. They'll be frozen solid until we can get a CONTAC team out here. With a lot of solvent. I shut them down manually as a safety measure."
"Oh, shit," Mitchell said. His schematic was being picked up from a corps intelligence section still well to the rear. They, in turn, were still getting information from forward deployed sensors a
nd surviving personnel and he could see the first wave of the Posleen pouring into the Gap, with the Lampreys and C-Decs backstopping them. "We have a serious problem here. Suggestions would be helpful, Miss Indy."
"We can probably move the tracks," the warrant officer answered with a desperate grimace. "If they freeze up they're strong enough to break the plastic. Same on rotating the turret. But until the stuff sets, we can't use the automatics to engage. And it could lock up barrel elevation. So we can't elevate or depress."
"So what do we do, Miss Indy?" Mitchell asked patiently.
"We need to avoid moving the sensors or the gun for about another twenty minutes, sir," the engineer said. "We've got a control run problem with the gun anyway; I'm working on it."
"Do we have any solvent?" Mitchell asked.
"I have a couple of five-gallon buckets," Indy admitted. "But it would mean climbing up on top and pouring it on the antennas. And I don't think I could clear all the goop; we're either going to have to let it set or find a POL point that can dump gasoline all over us!"
"Pruitt, help the warrant," Mitchell said. "After you put a round up the tube. Schmoo, get us the hell out of here."
"Yes, sir!" the private said, engaging the treads. "One foam-covered, screwed up, disarmed SheVa, getting the hell out of Dodge."
"You want me to climb up on top of Bun-Bun while we're moving?" the gunner asked.
"Hopefully not," the major said, keying the mike to call the support units. "But if you do, think of it as Torg and Riff on another adventure." After a moment's thought he started looking for the frequencies for Fourteen's ammo trucks; if they survived this they were going to need more than eight reloads.
"But she looks more like Zoe, sir," the gunner said with a shrug, hitting the key to load the first round. "And is it just me, or does anyone else find it odd calling her 'Miss Indy'?"
"Pruitt, shut up and go help the warrant." He shook his head and checked his schematics again. The landers, now unopposed, were moving in a leisurely fashion to silence all resistance in the valley. "Just how much more screwed up is this day going to get?"
* * *
"Just how much more screwed up is this going to get?" Orostan asked, looking at the mushroom cloud rising over the Gap. "Pacalolstal, report!"
"I don't think Pacalostal is going to be reporting ever again, Oolt'ondai," Cholosta'an said. "I suspect that most of the tenaral are gone."
"Thrah nah toll!" Orostan cursed. "Demons of Sky and Fire, I hate humans!"
"Oh, this isn't too bad," Cholosta'an said philosophically. "We've only lost two ships, the Wall is down and most of the human soldiers are out of our way. This might actually speed things up."
"The tenaral were to be used against the metal threshkreen as well," Orostan snarled.
"We'll deal with them when we have to," Cholosta'an said with a flap of resignation.
"We shall indeed," Orostan said. "Very well; all ships proceed to the Gap. Time for phase two."
CHAPTER 25
Rabun Gap, GA, United States, Sol III
1309 EDT Saturday September 26, 2009 ad
Major Ryan pulled his fingers away from his ears and shook his head trying to clear the ringing. "I swear to God, one of these days I'll remember earplugs," he groaned.
"You okay, Major?" the specialist who shared the bunker with him asked.
"What?" Ryan yelled, standing up. The soldier sounded as if she was speaking from the bottom of a well.
"I asked if you were okay!" the specialist shouted, pulling earplugs out of her ears. "I'm, personally, a little shook up."
"Fine," Ryan shouted back. "Time to see if anything's left."
One corner of the bunker had crumpled, but the rest was intact and the doorway was only partially blocked. Crawling through, Ryan looked out on a scene of devastation.
The picturesque school on the top of the hill had been flattened down to stumps. The bricks of the school were scattered down the western slope of the hill along with various less identifiable bits. Ryan saw a few survivors crawling out of bunkers or, in one incredible case, simply sitting up in the wreckage. But for all practical purposes the corps headquarters was gone. He wasn't sure what might have happened to the three division headquarters, but from his perspective it didn't really matter. The corps was for all practical purposes bound to rout, the only question was what he, personally, should do about that.
He looked down at the specialist who, having crawled out of the bunker was now perched on it, looking around at the devastation with an expression of interest on her face.
"What's your specialty . . ." He glanced at the nametag which read "Kitteket" and raised his eyebrows. "Kitkay? Kitta . . . ?"
"You have a problem with my name, Major?" the specialist yelled back with a grin. "It's Native American. It's pronounced Kit-a-kutt. Not, and I want to be clear about this, not Kittycat."
"Okay," Ryan answered bemusedly. "What the hell, my sergeant at Occoquan was named Leon . . ."
"I'm a clerk typist, sir," the soldier replied loudly. "You know, all the antimatter in that thing must not have gone up. Otherwise this bunker would have collapsed like a tinfoil hut."
"That's not usually the sort of thing that a clerk typist knows," Ryan pointed out. The motorpool fence had been shredded by the expanding shockwave so he walked around the gate and through a gap.
"I read a lot of manuals."
"Uh, huh. I guess that's why you made for the bunker when they started pounding the SheVa?"
"You betcha," she answered with a grin. "I helped build these things, the hell if I was gonna let 'em go to waste!"
"Well, if we're not all going to go to waste we need to beat feet," Ryan commented, striding down the hill.
"Where are you . . . we going?" she asked. "And shouldn't we be . . . I dunno, organizing the defenders or something?"
"Nope," Ryan said. "In just about five minutes it's going to sink in with most of the support units that the Posleen are coming and nothing's gonna stop 'em. When that happens they're going to rout. And that means that all the roads will be jammed."
He pulled open the door of the first reasonably intact Humvee and tried to start it. After he reset a breaker it cranked up.
"What we're going to do is head for the nearest ammo depot," he continued. "Along the way we're going to pick up about four more bodies. And then we're going to head for the hills."
"Like I thought," she said, getting in the other side. "Running away."
"Nope," he grinned. "Hills where roads get steep. Because what we're going to pick up at the ammo depot is all the explosives that will fit in this thing. . . ."
* * *
Mueller walked out of his quarters and looked down the valley as the first concussion of the space-based weaponry echoed up the mountains. He couldn't see the SheVa gun from his angle, but he did see the signature of its firing and the track of the "silver bullet" heading down range. Nonetheless it was fairly obvious a major attack was underway and he stroked his chin for a moment thinking about what their mission should be. The recon groups were pretty useless in a heavy assault. But these Posleen were acting out of character already by using the landers to assault the Wall.
He stood there for a moment as other NCOs started to filter out of the barracks until he saw the flight of Posleen flying tanks.
"AID," he said, holding his wrist up where the device could observe them. "Do you see those?"
Most of the group had moved out of sight to the right, presumably attacking the artillery park. But one group could be seen sweeping up and down in singles, apparently assaulting something on the east side of the valley.
"I do, Sergeant Mueller. Be advised, the target of those weapons is SheVa Fourteen. Given their weaponry and the number of passes, it is likely that they are going to penetrate its containment system."
"Map the corps forward areas," he said, glancing at the hologram. "Map probable destruction zone of SheVa catastrophic kill."
The results were
not good; if . . . when SheVa Fourteen went, it would gut the corps.
"Oh, shit," he muttered. "Get me Sergeant Major Mosovich . . . and you'd better make sure General Horner is aware of this."
* * *
Horner looked at his own hologram and shook his head. He had, indeed, been apprised of the situation in the Gap by a call from Eastern Headquarters, and he had to admit that it looked rather bad. He recalled one of his favorite maxims for a moment like this, coined by one of the few really effective British generals of World War II, to the effect that things are never quite as good or bad as first reports indicate. In that case what had just happened in the Gap was simply a disaster rather than the end of the war.
He also noted that even with an AID, the map was not the reality. And it never hurt to ask an on-scene observer.
"AID, where is Sergeant Major Mosovich in that mess?"
"Sergeant Major Mosovich is about four miles west of the Corps Bachelors Noncommissioned Officers Quarters."
"Get him for me, please."
* * *
Mosovich adjusted the strap of his pack as the team reached the top of the ridge. From there it was easy to see the stream of vehicles that indicated a corps in full "bug-out boogie" mode. Not that he could blame them; the detonation of the SheVa was bad enough, but he could see the rear group of landers swarming over the main valley of the Gap; without a functional SheVa gun there was no way to resist those.
"Sergeant Major," his AID chimed. "General Horner calling."
"Put him through." Mosovich sighed. "Afternoon, sir."
"I notice you don't say 'Good afternoon,' Sergeant." The AID threw up a hologram of the officer in the distant headquarters and he had his habitual tight, grim smile locked down. "Tell me what's going on."
"Full tilt bug-out boogie, sir," Mosovich said. "We're heading up into the hills to try to swing down and take a look at them as they pour past or, if it goes the way I'm figuring, try to E&E out to the west. The AID says they're pouring through one hundred thousand an hour and that matches my rough guess of the ones I can see. And we saw flying tanks; the AIDs have visuals on them now. I don't see the corps rallying either, sir. And there's a Sub-Urb just to the north; I'm afraid that's going to be on its own, sir. I'll tell you the truth, sir, I don't like it at all."